Da Couch Tomato

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Cinema, television, literature, and music–basically anything that can be reviewed. If you're interested in writing reviews, e-mail us at dacouchtomato@gmail.com. We won't pay you for reviews, but you get to practise your writing skills. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

Blue Valentine

This review does not contain lust.

This film got an NC17 rating at first in the U.S., which is like porn. But it is not.

Blue Valentine is about a marriage, a relationship... of love between Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams). That statement may be as abstract as it is, but it's really what the film is about. And I wouldn't say it chronicled the failure of a marriage, or falling out of love. I think the film until the very last frame was about love and relationships.

I can't put my finger on it, but there is something in the movie that made it feel so real. There's equal parts romance and reality that makes an effective medium of storytelling. I have to give special mention to the scene where Gosling played the ukulele and sang in a stupid goofy voice but actually turned out really good. The song was the background of this movie's trailer, and it got me wanting to see it ASAP. I think he is the voice of this film. But that is not to say Williams is just a close second. Both gave great lengths in their performances, each on its own merit as character actors and as dance partners with the story as their song.

Playing a guitar (or guitar-like instrument) is a plus on my book.

It was a long shot for a movie like this to land on our shores. Even if they appealed and got an R rating in the U.S.—without having to cut and re-edit the film—it's not likely that we'd see it here as raw as that. A lot of films brought here only to be cut and edited differently from what the directors originally intended is not worth seeing. So I give a shout-out to the people behind the film who fought for this story to be told the way it is.

Blue Valentine gets a seven out of ten, for its bravery and truthfulness to their story of love all the way till the end.

P.S. Watch for the end credits sequence. It's a firework of visual orgasms.